The Monday puzzle is the easiest of the week, rewarding knowledge of facts and information rather then aptitude for wordplay or puns.

I usually complete it in a stupor - (I'm the furthest thing from a morning person) - using a fountain pen - in about 5 minutes or less.

With the help of my inner search engine.

Clue: "Wildcat with tufted ears" Answer: "Lynx." That just popped into my head.

Clue "Emile of the Dreyfus Affair" Answer: "Zola." I know why I know this. I have been fanatically interested in the Dreyfus Affair since the age of 12. It was an espionage scandal in late 19th century France which resulted in the unjust conviction of a French Jewish officer. The great writer Emile Zola, came to the defense of Dreyfus when his open letter to the President of France was published in the newspaper L'Aurore" with the headline "J'Accuse."

Clue: "Indian state known for its tea and silk" Answer: Assam. No clue why I know this.

Clue: "Dresden denials" Answer: "Neins." Questions like this are a gift to me because I know three languages fluently and have studied another four.

Clue: "One side of a Faustian bargain" Answer: Satan. I read Goethe's Faust when I was 13. He makes a pact with the devil exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Spoiler: bad idea.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Did you know that in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5, Internet Gaming Disorder is not recognized as an official diagnosis?

It was introduced in 2013 for further study.

I think we can all save some research dollars by putting that question to rest.

Forget the kids who play World of Warcraft for days on end - I have watched adults play Angry Birds until they developed repetitive stress injuries. In China, there's even a boot camp to rehabilitate "web junkies" who prefer the gaming world to the real world.

A recent Tech Insider article stated that the typical adult under the age of 45 relies upon four digital devices, and the average individual spends 90% more time consuming digital media on a smartphone today versus 2013.

And the signs of crisis are everywhere. Nearly 60% of computer users check email in the bathroom; 15% have read their email in church; and 85% say they would take a laptop on vacation. Drilling down on the numbers, it’s even worse. We check 40 web sites a day; open 85% of work emails within two minutes; and switch between programs nearly 37 times an hour.

They are expensive and not yet perfected. But that will change in a New York minute.

Brittany Ott, a corporate services clinician at the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery at Proctor Hospital, believes that "VR provides a quicker way to get into an altered state, so the more accessible it becomes, the more at risk it is of becoming an addiction."

Addiction professionals at reSTART, the nation's first internet and technology addiction recovery center, are already concerned that VR may alter brain chemistry in ways not yet fully understood.

Additionally, the reSTART team has spent seven years gathering research that indicates the excessive use of digital devices, including video game systems, are associated with "an intensity of mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and in many cases, autism spectrum traits and features."

Science fiction, especially landmark shows like the original Star Trek, have been predictive of many advances in technology. In fact, other than the "warp speed" allowing rapid space travel, almost every gadget from the show is already in existencein the 21st century.

Reading about the potential impact of VR reminds me of the aliens in "The Menagerie," arguably the best episode of the show. It features the Talosians, humanoid aliens who are able to mass-project illusions. Their civilization fell after they discovered the ability to cast these illusions.

Their power to conjure these alternate realities is considered so dangerous, that the entire planet of Talos IV is off limits to Starfleet personnel.

When I first saw this episode, in the late 60s, it seemed the stuff of fantasy set in a distant future.

But then I watched Web Junkie, a 2015 documentary about an inpatient treatment facility for internet addiction in China, where it has been declared a national health crisis. The film follows the treatment of three Chinese teenagers, obsessive gamers whose preference is for the virtual world over the real one.

The institute's founder, a psychiatrist, explains that the average person cannot begin to imagine the level of pathology he has seen. He describes young people who voluntarily wear adult diapers so that even the call of nature need not interrupt their game play for even a minute.

250 years before the timeline of the fictional Star Trek series, we are creating illusions and falling victim to their power.